Wally West was the first Flash I can remember. But then most of my early comics knowledge came from the Justice League cartoon. In that, Wally was really the only Flash. Jay Gerrick was more of a special guest for a Crisis on Two Earths send-up and none of the kids were around yet. Barry Allen was maybe mentioned in passing. Since Barry’s revival more than a decade ago, Wally has been around, but more in the background while Barry got to catch-up on the 20 years worth of stories he’d missed out on. But Wally has taken up The Flash series again, thanks to Si Spurrier, Mike Deodato Jr., Trish Mulvihill, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and things have gotten spooky.

We open The Flash with Max Mercury, one of the original speedsters from National Comics in the 40s. He’s gone by many names over the decades, especially after Mark Waid re-tooled him in the 90s, but now he’s a mentor to younger speedsters like Impulse.

Until they bounce right off the Speed Force. This isn’t supposed to happen. But the Flash of the moment, Wally West, is busy elsewhere stopping an incursion of Gorilla Grodd’s soldiers from abducting Central City citizens. It’s hurting him, though. Not the fight, but simply running. This also isn’t supposed to happen. Neither is the almost invisible speedster who appears from nowhere, bumping into buildings and causing general chaos, before disappearing. Elsewhere in the city, Mr. Terrific talks to an unknown scientist about the Speed Force, how it’s potentially going to rip apart reality, and how every speedster that taps into it needs to die. 

We get to peer further into the Speed Force and the Speed Force is peering back at us for the first time. What was originally a rather nebulous source of super speed is now being corrupted in a way that invites a variety of abominations to bleed into our world. Wally himself vibrates from our reality to one inhabited by spider-like creatures that scream prophecies of disaster. And, of course, he doesn’t bring any of this up to someone who could help him. But what has long been a benevolent piece of Silver Age strangeness is now the curtain hiding the horrors of another reality. Long rendered in a psychedelic spiral of color and velocity, the Speed Force is now a shimmering metallic darkness sitting at the heart of every speedster.

The Flash now feels less like a mainline DC series and more like something from early 90s Vertigo in terms of its tone and content. It’s that kind of strangeness and lingering dread that made so many of those Vertigo series iconic and it’s the kind of thing missing from many mainstream books. Luckily Spurrier, Deodato Jr., Mulvihill, and Otsmane-Elhaou are still able to give us a series that has its foundations in that past work while still feeling fresh now. 

Get excited. Get fast.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.